Let us then learn from the Cross of Jesus our proper way of living.
Should I say ‘living’ or, instead, ‘dying’? Rather, both living and dying.
Dying to the world, living for God.
Dying to vices and living by the virtues.
Dying to the flesh, but living in the spirit.
Thus in the Cross of Christ there is death and in the Cross of Christ there is life.
The death of death is there, and the life of life.
The death of sins is there and the life of the virtues.
The death of the flesh is there, and the life of the spirit.
But why did God choose this manner of death?
He chose it as both a mystery and an example.
In addition, he chose it because our sickness was such as to make such a remedy appropriate.
It was fitting that we who had fallen because of a tree might rise up because of a tree.
Fitting that the one who had conquered by means of a tree might also be conquered by means of a tree.
Fitting that we who had eaten the fruit of death from a tree might be given the fruit of life from a tree.
And because we had fallen from the security of that most blessed place on earth into this great, expansive sea, it was fitting that wood should be made ready to carry us across it.
For no one crosses the sea except on wood, or this world except on the Cross.
–Saint Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-1167)
